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A Battle Royale
A Battle Royale is one of Battlezone II's two plot branches occuring immediately after Fanning the Fire. It and A Species Not Worthy are mutually exclusive. A Traitor's Fate Reports on the events near the crash-site were brought up in Armond Braddock's court-martial hearings, but all points raised against him were refuted and he was cleared of all charges. The highest-ranking officers of the ISDF have also been made privy to the General's long-term plan; once the Scion Convergence is vanquished, he plans for the ISDF to take control of Earth, disband the AAN and take control of their biometal supply, claming that only once this has been done can the ISDF effectively defend Earth and humankind against potential future attack. Unfortunately, a series of transmissions detected on Rend reveal a potential problem for this plan; Henry Manson is alive and well, and he and his squad have formed a rebel faction of AAN loyalists who do not wish to continue fighting the Scions. When news of this reaches the Second Fleet, it is divided; around half of its forces defect to Manson's troops, with the rest loyal to Braddock's New Regime. Recognising the severity of this problem and wishing to stop it before it can cause any further trouble, Bradock has John Cooke resolve the problem. Braddock demands Manson's immediate surrender, and when the former Major refuses, he has Cooke lead a small assault to storm their base on Rend. Once it is destroyed, Cooke and his wingmen begin to return to the dust-off, fighting off an unsuccessful Loyalist ambush along the way. Manson's body was eventually found in the rubble at the base, and with no leader the Loyalists retreat, most either returning to Earth or rejoining the Regime. Trivia * The mission objectives for this mission erroneously order Cooke to provide long-range back-up while Braddock's squad assaults Manson's base. Hole in One Witness notes from the interrogation sessions suggest that Frank Burns and Braddock spoke with some degree of familiarity and note Burns' human qualities. Unfortunately Burns manages to escape, though official reports state that Burns had died during interrogation, but his body disappeared before autopsy. A tissue sample taken before Burns' disappearance showed characteristics of both biometal and human tissue, and a DNA test run through the ISDF database flagged a match with Braddock himself. Other Scion tissue samples, interestingly, did not display any of these features. Regime forces manage to trace a Scion convoy to a previously uncharted region of the system, where an as-yet undetected planet similar to the Dark Planet and referred to as Core is discovered. Concluding that it must be the Scion homeworld, Regime forces prepare to make landfall. While they prepare for the assault, Braddock confirms to Cooke that the he had indeed known about the Dark Planet for years, but hadn't disclosed its existence to the AAN for fear that bureaucracy would still be stalling any potential action. He even goes so far as to disclose the origin of the Scions; during the 1960s, during the Biometal War, the NSDF had Braddock run an experiment to fuse the Black Dogs with biometal in the attempt to create a new breed of super-soldier. Burns, at the time his protege, and the rest of the Black Dogs eventually rebelled, renamed themselves the Scions, and fled into space. Braddock is determined to stop them from escaping again. With no time to consider what he has been told, Cooke descends to Core. Intelligence suggests that the planet can be completely destroyed from underground; doing so would wipe out the Scions for good. Coooke is tasked with locating an entrance to a tunnel artery that comprises part of the planet's infrastructure. No sooner has Cooke found the entrance than a Scion convoy is detected retreating underground; Cooke locates and destroys it, before preparing to enter the planet's tunnel network. Further investigation of the planet discovers that it is essentially a massive supercomputer, containing all of the data and technology necessary for the Scions' survival, preventing the biometal within them from overwhelming the human element of their biology. Braddock, meanwhile, has agreed to ensure the truth is reported in history, including the birth of the Scions as part of Project Pedigree. He insists that the destruction of Core will complete his assigned task of ending the Biometal War. Core Now certain that Core is the heart of the Scion species, and in the knowledge that without proximity to the planet, the Scions will die, Cooke descends to the tunnel network to destroy the central computer while Braddock talks him through it. Burns makes one final plea to Braddock to leave the Scions be, but is ignored. Cooke realises as he descends that Core is dying; the planet's structures are slowly falling apart and it is rapidly running out of resources. Once in the tunnel system, Cooke encounters a series of robotic guard units and turrets defending it, and several force fields that can only be passed after destroying the Conduits powering them. Once these are passed, the central computer itself comes into view; a massive crystal, similar to those found in the Scion devices, suspended by beams of energy. As Cooke proceeds to destroy the four supports, several Guardian Mines attempt to attack him, but he fights them off and the computer core collapses against its housing. The damage done to the core causes the planet's infrastructure to begin to implode, leaving Cooke with only minutes to escape back to his dropship through the collapsing tunels. ISDF Ending Cinematic Cooke escapes the planet successfully, reaching his dropship a matter of moments before he is swept up in a massive explosion emanating from the planet's core, and the dropship only barely manages to escape before the entire planet is caught in the blast. With no Core planet, the entire Scion race will die off in a matter of days. Cooke is hailed a hero, but can't help but wonder what the Scions real motivations were; how would they colonise the Dark Planet, and why did they want to destroy the earth? Category:Storyline